


Lonesome Pondering and Mental Instability

by communitycrave (rivscreamsnk)



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:35:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25291018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivscreamsnk/pseuds/communitycrave
Summary: Abed is lonely during summer break and realises his mental health might need some long overdue attention, and maybe he could not do it alone.
Relationships: Troy Barnes & Abed Nadir
Kudos: 29





	Lonesome Pondering and Mental Instability

He was alone today, and he wasn’t sure what to do. There had not been classes in two weeks now, and both Troy and Annie went out for holiday-related business earlier that week and would not come back for a while. They had families to visit. But Abed was not so sure whether he wanted to visit his. So, instead of that, he was staring at his hands as he thought through the options of what to do. It wasn’t like there weren’t any, but he actually did not feel up for any of it. He needed a break, but the ironic thing was that he was in the middle of exactly that: a break. However, a break from classes somehow had not meant a break from the overwhelming pressure he felt. And that was what he really needed; he needed his brain to stop making him feel like he was in a high-stakes action movie and constantly being shot at.

Abed knew he should get up and do something, anything other than just _sitting there_. But he couldn’t get himself to move. If Troy were here, he thought, it would be different. His friends made him feel better, less under pressure, almost like he was okay. He moved his glance to his phone, which had not lit up with new notifications in a while. It made sense; everyone was way busier than him so they wouldn’t be messaging him all day. And he didn’t want them to either. Actually, he wasn’t sure what he wanted anymore. He felt lonely but at the same time he knew that talking to people took too much energy out of him. Energy that he did not have.

Once again, he tried himself to stand up but instead of moving away from the wall, he leaned more towards it, pulling his knees to his chest and hugging them. That was the wrong direction for his body to move in, he noted, but he couldn’t help it. As he managed to lift his head to look at the clock on the other side of the room, he realised it was close to dinner time already. Abed knew he should eat something, and preferably something healthy, but that was another thing that had been hard for him. It seemed like being alone brought out the worst in him, and he hated that.

It had not always been like this. Right? There had been a time where he lived in the dorms on his own, and that had been fine. He wasn’t sure what had gone wrong for that to change. Why was being alone so difficult now? There was no real reason for him to feel like this. While he knew that did not mean it was impossible, or completely unbelievable to feel this bad without a discernible cause, it did make him question how he would fix this. Everything felt so heavy. Could he “rest” his way out of this negativity? But how would he even do that? He wasn’t sure whether he knew what resting really meant. Not for him, anyway. He was too used to doing a lot of things at once, sometimes too many even, but he always tried to avoid doing too little.

Maybe that was the problem now, then. Maybe he was doing too little things. But, again, how would he do _any_ thing if he couldn’t even get himself to move from the floor he was still sitting on? When he had so little energy one conversation over the phone was all he could manage in a day before falling into nothingness? Abed had no answers to the many questions that were circling his mind and, frankly, it terrified him. If only his friends were here, but they couldn’t be saving him forever. That wouldn’t be fair. This was something that was entirely on him and up to him to fix, too.

Just as Abed was about to give up on the idea of reaching out for help, his phone screen lit up. It was Troy, who texted him an enthusiastic “ _Look what I found in this random clothing store!!”_ The message sounded intriguing, and Abed managed to let go of one knee in order to pick up his phone to look at the photo Troy had included in the message. Of course, the thing he had found was an Inspector Spacetime shirt that had a reference on it that related to one of their favourite moments in the entire show. An exciting coincidence, indeed. Abed found himself smiling just a little bit. This completely random message had managed to interrupt the self-pity he was experiencing and reminded him of the presence of his friends. Just because they were not physically here, they had not disappeared completely and neither had he from their minds.

So maybe, just maybe, he could try to talk about what he was experiencing. He had not done that yet, because he didn’t want them to worry. Or become a burden to them. It was easier to go along like everything was fine, because at least he knew they could handle him like that. This exhausted version of him that could not offer much more than negative thought spirals was not something he shared, because he had never needed to. Until now, because some part of him still wanted to get out of whatever he was dealing with. Some part of him did want him to get better. It had been a week now and ignoring his exhaustion clearly did not do him any good. So, before he could change his mind, he looked back at his phone screen and after typing out a quick acknowledgement of Troy’s cool find, started to write the message that would change things. Hopefully, the message that would change things for the better.

“ _I’ll be honest. I have not been well, Troy. I can’t really deal with being alone right now, and I am exhausted. I am not sure what to do about that. I don’t mean to burden you with this, but I wanted to say it because I could actually use a friend right now._ ”

The response took a mere minute, and Abed was grateful. Troy was a fast typer when he wanted to be.

“ _Abed, you are valid. I’m here for you. What do you need?_ ”

He took a few moments to read it and read it again to check whether he had read it right. It was short, but incredibly meaningful. And so, Abed was a little less burdened and alone. He had made the right decision, and while he was not sure what he needed, he knew Troy could help him figure that out.


End file.
